SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
How open and accessible should American college campuses be? More schools are asking that question after campus shootings, like the one at Utah Valley University that killed Charlie Kirk, and after the encampments and protests that erupted two years ago in the wake of the October 7 attacks and the bombardment of Gaza. NPR's Elissa Nadworny joins us now. Elissa, thanks so much for being with us.
ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: You're welcome, Scott.
SIMON: You travel regularly to college campuses. How do they typically handle security these days?
NADWORNY: It really is a wide range. So some campuses are completely open. You can walk into the library or academic buildings. You can have a picnic on the quad or use the bathroom in the student center. But increasingly, campuses are tightening security and restricting access. So take Columbia University in New York City. You can't walk through campus without a university ID. Other colleges, you've got to check in with a security officer before you can walk or drive through a campus gate. Tom Saccenti, the CEO of the National Association of Campus Safety Administrators, who served as a chief of police at several colleges and universities, has watched this trend unfold, and he said he understands why more and more campuses are starting to limit access.
TOM SACCENTI: As a law enforcement officer, I'm going to do everything I can to make it the most safe within my resources, right? And then also as a dad of a daughter who's going to college, I'm going to say, man, do I really want someone who has no affiliation that we can tie into the college, to be walking through her living space, you know?
SIMON: Elissa, this does raise the question about who university is for. Is it members of the community who, in some cases, of course, fund the school with their tax dollars, or students?
NADWORNY: Yeah. I talked with Dr. Michael Heindl, the president of Northwest Mississippi Community College, about it. His institution serves about 8,000 students with athletics and dorms and a big performing arts center on campus.
MICHAEL HEINDL: It is indeed a balance. Whether you're a community college like we are or whether you're a university, on one side of this balance that I'm referring to, you know, it is making sure that students have a safe place.
NADWORNY: You know, on the other side, I mean, it's called a community college for a reason, Scott. Heindl says working with the public is built into the school's vision statement, and he told me how much students and the community have to gain from interacting with each other.
HEINDL: Most colleges and universities are beautiful places for people to engage in. And so I just think that those types of things are lost when an institution have to make the decision to wall itself off in that way.
SIMON: So, Elissa, what kind of burden does that put on security to keep a campus open?
NADWORNY: Well, you know, the role of campus safety, campus police, has really changed in the last 20 years. The experts I talked to told me the Virginia Tech Massacre, a shooting that happened on campus in 2007, where more than 30 people on campus were killed, really reshaped the role of campus police. And even two decades later, much of campus security comes down to resources. And that's in terms of the number of people they have on campus and what those officers are trained in, especially when it comes to these bigger outside speakers coming to campus. And then, of course, there's money. Here's Saccenti.
SACCENTI: One license plate reader at one road doesn't help you at all. Twenty license plate readers throughout campus is what helps you, and those things cost money. Sometimes it's just easier to set up a gate and have one person check every person that comes through.
NADWORNY: The other thing he and other campus safety professionals told me is the wide range of responsibility these folks have. I mean, the vast majority of what he dealt with on campus was what he called parental in nature.
SACCENTI: Listen, sometimes when the washer is overflowing, and it's 1 o'clock in the morning, I get the phone call and I walk them through how to fix the washer, right?
NADWORNY: But the reality is, from concerns about sexual assaults, to protests, to crowd control and fears of active shooter situations, campus police today are increasingly being asked to do so much more.
SIMON: NPR's Elissa Nadworny. Thanks so much for being with us.
NADWORNY: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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